


“it’s two sugars, right?”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [64]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Awkward situations, Embarrassment, Friendship, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22439962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Daisy Wells turns up bleeding on the doorstep of a surprisingly familiar family.Canon EraWritten for the sixty-fourth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Daisy Wells & Alexander Arcady
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [64]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Kudos: 16





	“it’s two sugars, right?”

Murder can sometimes, and only sometimes, be dangerous.

Desperate for some form of help, I limp up to the door of the house marked 204, with beautifully-kept hedges, and flowers and vines tumbling down the brickwork. The door knocker raps twice — I’m only vaguely aware that I’m the one doing it — and then the door swings open.

I’ve done this a few times — descending upon random family homes pretending to be a woman who has escaped an attacker and desperately needs help — but I am not expecting the response.

Before now, I thought that I had heard every possible one.

_ “Oh my goodness, are you okay?” _

_ “Do you need an ambulance?” _

_ “Mummy! There’s a pretty lady bleeding on the porch!” _

_ “This is what independent woman get.” _

_ “I DON’T WANT TO BUY YOUR FUCKING COOKIES— oh, hello.” _

However, I doubt that I will ever hear another variation of this one.

“Daisy Wells! What moronic heroine shit did you get up to this time?”

The voice jars me. It’s American, which doesn’t astonish me as I’m running around the centre of New Orleans. What astonishes me is that I  _ know _ the voice. I know that irritating Southern drawl that’s muffled by the diction they impress upon students at Weston, and the odd-sounding but natural use of oh-so-English phrases that are said with a slight inclination of the sharp-dressing and silver-tongued detective who he learnt them from.

I drag my eyes up from where they’re fixed on the ground and my suspicions are confirmed: a familiar American with a thin face, hazel eyes, and rather dishevelled blond hair that’s been cropped shorter yet again, wearing narrow blue trousers and a vibrant button up that he wears surprisingly well. Although he always looked stiff and awkward in his clothes when we met in England as teenagers (and again and again and again, more than I would have liked), American fashion seems tailored to fit him, loud colours on shirts and jackets mismatched from the trousers, and a lack of the sharp waistcoats and black trilby hats that I so often see him and George in when Hazel and I meet him in England.

“Alexander?”

“Jesus Christ, it is you. I was starting to worry that I’d called someone else out for being a moronic heroine,” he says, holding out a hand towards me. “Do you want a drink?”

I reach out and grab it without a second thought, allowing him to help me over the threshold and into the house. “Tea would be lovely, Alexander.”

“It’s two sugars, right?”

I nod and he turns to grin at me, so proud that he’s remembered. Then he sees the blood seeping through my shirt either side of where my arm is crossed over my stomach. “Christ!”

“It’s not that bad,” I lie, wincing as my arm applies more pressure. “It’s just a bit of a scratch.”

“Helen! Ruthie!” he yells back into the house. “Get your Auntie Dorothy for me!”

Turning back to me, where I am hunched in the doorway with my eyebrow raised, he says, “Cousins. If you thought that I was annoying when I was thirteen, try two obnoxious American little girls that haven’t been sufficiently mellowed-out by George Mukherjee.”

“Christ alive, I would rather have been shot in the face.” I murmur, vaguely conscious enough to be horrified at the idea of two smaller and more eccentric versions of thirteen-year-old Alexander Arcady running around New Orleans. 

“Someone was shooting at you?” he asks in a panic, the tone that his voice was wrought with on the Orient Express rising back to claim his speech with a vengeance.

I lift my arm away from where it’s crossed over my stomach to bat at the concerned hands he’s reaching out, and I remember why I had it where it was in the first place: that arm was putting pressure on the bullet wound.

“DAISY!” Alexander shrieks and he turns around to the doorway to see the two blonde little girls staring at him with wide eyes.

“Auntie Dorothy says that you should stop being lazy and go to her if you need something,” the first girl says, her American accent so much  _ worse _ than Alexander’s.

“She said that it’s because her legs aren’t what they used to be,” adds the second, elbowing the first in the side as they giggle. 

He rolls his eyes and mutters, “Mom can be a little… a little snappy sometimes.”

I snort a laugh.

Fixing his eyes on the girls, Alexander says in the sweetest voice, “Tell Auntie Dorothy that I’m taking my friend Daisy to the hospital because she’s really hurt, okay?”

The girl that is clearly the younger of the two gasps, her lower lip wobbling like a plate about to break. “Oh no! Will she be alright, Alexander?”

_ Wow, George really is the only person who calls him Alex. _

“Of course she’ll be alright, Helen,” he says comfortingly, turning back to me with a gesture to prompt me to speak. “Right, Daisy?”

“Right,” I agree in a thick drawl of tiredness and adrenaline and blood loss moulding together.

Then the world phases to darkness and I pitch forward into Alexander’s arms. 


End file.
